


Palimpsest

by faeleverte



Category: The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Rape/Non-con References, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 20:06:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faeleverte/pseuds/faeleverte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>pa·limp·sest<br/>noun \ˈpa-ləm(p)-ˌsest, pə-ˈlim(p)-\<br/>1<br/>: writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased<br/>2<br/>: something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface </p><p> </p><p>How many times can a human be erased and rewritten before the writing all bleeds together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Romanova

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: There are descriptions of a very brutal childhood. It is not graphic, but you know your tolerance level best. This is not a happy beginning, and it will not be a light-hearted story. There will be graphic violence. There will be grief. There will also be healing and sex and love and friendship. But we aren't there yet.
> 
> Be gentle with yourself and watch your triggers.

She was nine the first time she shot a man. She stood over his bleeding body to watch him die, her own blood trickling from a split lip, and she was angry. Her blouse was torn, the prettiest one with the trailing flowers embroidered around the collar. The fabric was ripped, and she knew she would never be able to mend it enough to hide the damage. But she was safe from this man with his rough hands and rougher voice. She was safe for now. She straightened her skirt and stalked away, proud and erect on her dirty, bare feet.

She was 12 the first time she stabbed a man to death. This man had no gun tucked against his ribs or at the small of his back, and she had to improvise, grabbing a long shard of glass from the window he had thrown her against and driving it again and again into his neck until his gurgles had stopped and his body no longer twitched. She shivered, eyes unseeing as she kept stabbing until the grating of the glass against the bones of her fingers brought her back to herself, back to the pain of her bruised body. She had been fast enough - strong enough - but only barely.

When she was 13 she was not fast enough or strong enough.

At 15 she killed a man with her bare hands, the physical training They gave her allowing her thighs to pin him down as her long, capable fingers locked around his throat, squeezing, pressing, hurting, until he could no longer grab at her. This time, as she gracefully rose, she was proud that her clothing was intact, that there were no bruises or cuts on her face, her back, her legs.

By the time she was 17, she had mostly quit fighting to keep them off her body, instead trading favors and using every available asset to achieve her objectives. She sometimes took pleasure from some of the acts, and she learned that owning someone’s body could translate into owning their soul. Some of the men who clutched at her clothing even came out alive, but they were unwilling to speak of such encounters, because anyone who mentioned it did not survive to mention it a second time.

At 23, she changed all her objectives and turned her talents to collecting enough money to purchase her freedom. It was in the course of an operation for herself, secretly moonlighting where THEY could not possibly trace her, that she met... No, better to not even think of that, of him. But They had traced her eventually, had learned what she was doing. And They took it all from her. The money, the man, the future.

By 24, her only goal was to die, to purchase her freedom and her rest through her own spilled blood. And that was when an unknown falconer set a Hawk on her.

 

Natasha Romanova had heard of Hawkeye, of course. No one got to that level in their narrow world without knowing the names of the others who had also climbed so high. She was still stunned at the first sight of him, however, not expecting his youthful face, his easy grin, the bright, curious eyes. She was unsurprised by, but not unappreciative of, his well-muscled physique and the generous curve of his ass. She was floored by his easy manner and the friendly way he approached her on the street, tucking her hand in the crook of his arm and leading her along the wet pavement, an open smile on his face, while he hissed instructions and warnings in her ear.

“I’m with SHIELD,” he told her. “I was sent to kill you, but things have gone sideways, and I really need your help. You’re the only one good enough... There are some men on your tail, and now, most likely, on mine. They have my handler, and I am not leaving until I get him back. I’ll help you shake them, if you’ll help me.”

“And what then?” she asked, suddenly feeling as if she were drowning. She clung to his arm, seeing a chance. “If I help you, will you kill me?”

“If you insist, I suppose,” Hawkeye answered, sparing an understanding glance at her face. “But you have to be very, very certain that’s what you want.”

“I’m tired,” she answered, leaning into him a little too hard. “If you promise to make it fast and clean and easy, then I will help you.”

“I promise,” he told her seriously. “Now run.”

Their feet pounded up the street as they tried to disappear into the rain.

 

Four days later, she knelt on the side of a blood-stained mattress in a filthy safe house three countries away from where they had met, her hands pressing hard on a wound in Hawkeye’s stomach. The man they had rescued, introduced to her only as “Agent,” knelt across from her, his hands trembling with exhaustion as he pulled a length of suture silk out of a packet and struggled to thread a hair fine needle. He ripped off his suit coat, and cuffed up his sleeves before setting to work.

“Hold him,” Agent growled, shoving her hands out of his way. His voice stayed even and calm as he dragged the needle through the torn edges of flesh, but she could see the way his eyebrows bunched with fear. “We’ll have this closed and cleaned up in no time, Barton,” he murmured, fighting to still the quivering of his fingers. “You’ll be back to being a pain in my ass by the weekend.”

She pinned Hawkeye’s shoulders to the bed, but he was so weak from exhaustion and blood loss that she hardly needed to have been there at all to keep him still. She listened to the constant, calm murmur from Agent with growing astonishment. Every word was affectionate teasing that all ignored the severity of the injuries in the man on the bed. Promises of future missions, offers of food and recreation time, threats of extra paperwork.

“Why do you lie to him?” Natasha asked in Russian, having learned during the rescue and escape that Agent spoke many languages and Hawkeye spoke only two.

“I can’t hurt him,” Agent answered, knotting off the last stitch and clipping the ends of each one neatly with a pair of tiny scissors. “When I have nothing else left to give him, I will give him hope.”

Hawkeye’s eyelids drooped as Agent plunged the point of a syringe into his hip and firmly depressed the plunger.

“Why is that important?” she pressed. “Is it not better to approach the end with your head up and your eyes open?”

“It’s best to never approach the end,” Agent answered dryly. “But, if you have to, then it’s nice to have hope, nice to have someone watching over you.”

“You love him,” she said mockingly. Not a question. “Love is for children, and there is no place for it in the games we play.”

“He’s one of my specialists,” Agent answered. “He’s my responsibility.”

And he ended the conversation by collecting the bloody rags and the tatters of Hawkeye’s shirt and going to the kitchen to burn them in the sink. Not the best way to dispose of evidence, but it was the best method he had to hand. Natasha watched from the doorway of the bedroom, trying to read his blank expression by the glow of the fire.

When Hawkeye’s eyes flickered open eighteen hours later, Natasha fought the urge to force her pistol into his hand and beg him to use it. For eighteen hours she had withstood Agent’s silence, broken only to offer her food, to trade watches every three hours as they were both too exhausted to stay awake for long, and to make unflattering comments on the state of the weather. It was not death she feared so much as what this man, with his competent hands and unflappable calm, could do to her before he let her die. She was nervous from the strain of waiting for the interrogation to begin, for some sign that her usefulness was over and dreading what would happen when that time came. But Agent would simply wake her by calling her name from the doorway of the second bedroom, keeping his physical distance, and allowing her to keep a gun with her at all times. Still, she felt him watching, always watching, reading through the person she was to the child she had been. He saw, and that was the most frightening thing of all.

“He’s awake,” she called softly as Hawkeye’s blue eyes blinked open slowly and met hers, dark with pain but conscious. Agent immediately appeared, as if he had not been sleeping in the next room, as if he had been standing in the hall and waiting. A crease from his sleeve seam that ran up the side of his face was the only sign that he had taken any time from his silent vigil by the window to rest.

“Hullo, sir,” Hawkeye said, trying to sit up and wincing. “Guess I got us into a bit of a mess.”

“At least this mess is a bit more attractive - and significantly better housetrained - than that mangy dog you let follow you home in Beirut,” Agent answered with a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Do you know what kind of paperwork I have to go through every time you pick up a stray?”

“This time shouldn’t be too bad, Sir,” Hawkeye said. “I have an agreement to put her down myself, now that you’re safe.”

“If you feel you must,” Agent said, “so long as no one has any objection. I would prefer you wait until you’re well enough to do a bit of the watch duty, however.” He lifted one shoulder in a bored sort of half-shrug and walked out of the room.

“Is he always so cold?” Natasha asked Hawkeye, wondering how a man who had rattled on about hope and responsibility could allow her own life to be ended so casually. She shivered slightly, trying to sink further into the hard wooden chair she sat on in the corner of Hawkeye’s room. 

“Cold? Coulson? Bastard is made of ice.” Hawkeye laughed and then grimaced. He pressed one hand against the bandage on his side. “That may have been the most freaked out I’ve ever seen him. Actually,” Hawkeye paused, face lost in thought, “that was the second-most freaked out I’ve seen him.”

“And the first?” Natasha asked curiously.

“The night I made him promise to kill me.”

 

Two days later, Hawkeye climbed to his feet with Natasha and Agent (Coulson, she forced herself to think) helping him. He drew his arm back from where it had wrapped around Coulson’s ribs, and Natasha found herself looking down the barrel of the gun Hawkeye had pilfered from the small of Coulson’s back. She stepped back and dropped into the chair in the corner, eyes empty.

“So it’s like this,” Hawkeye said, stepping back and stretching his neck to the right to let her see his whole face. She did not take her eyes off the muzzle pointed at her head. “I don’t actually think you want to die,” he told her. “I think you just want to rest, to get away from the blood and the filth and the mistrust. I think you just want to try to figure out if there’s anything actually worth sticking around for. You haven’t seen everything, but everything you have seen is pretty fucking awful. I’ve stood on that side of this gun, this very gun, in fact. I know what it’s like.”

Natasha leaned away, the barest millimeter of movement. Hawkeye saw it, but Hawkeye saw everything.

“Now you’re really facing it, not just the chance of dying, but the abso-damn-lute certainty that there is someone here who is willing to pull the trigger, to put you down, put you under, and make it all stop,” Hawkeye continued. Without moving his hand, he stepped his body around to look at it from the side, as if he were studying someone else’s hand holding the gun that stayed rock steady, aimed right at her head. “I figure that you’re starting to wonder if there is an option you missed along the way.”

“There isn’t,” she said, quietly, coldly. “Do you think that I would miss a strategy?”

“Well, you have,” Hawkeye told her. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I was told when I was on that side of this gun. Look, you’re good. You’re the best. SHIELD has files on you that go back years, and there is no one with your skill. Let me take you in, recruit you.”

“So I can bow to your master?” she replied with an angry flash in her bright green eyes. She leaned forward, challenging. “I think not. I have no interest in allowing anyone to... use me. I just want to stop.”

“Not use,” Coulson said. He had stood so still, melting into the background, that Natasha had almost forgotten him. He stepped closer to Hawkeye’s shoulder and raised his hands, suit dirty and rumpled, but still an emblem of authority. “Hire. There is a difference. If you’re hired, you can quit. Granted, you would be at a bit of a disadvantage, as SHIELD can only protect you if you are in the fold, which fact might be seen as coercion. But you would be allowed to leave, allowed to disappear if you chose.”

“And to what uses would my ‘skill’ be put?”

“Killing the bad guys,” Hawkeye told her with a grin, finger still on the trigger, gun still rock steady. “Is there anything better?”

“Some that you would call ‘bad guys,’” she answered bitterly, “I would call friends.”

“We can negotiate that as we go,” Coulson told her. “You would not be forced into any mission, and any handler who tried... well, they can be left to me.”

“No,” she said. “If I were to do this, and that is not yet settled, you would be my handler. Hawkeye would be on my team. He would be my team. I do not trust your SHIELD.”

“But you’d trust us?” Hawkeye asked, his face very serious, eyes focused on hers. He had slipped back into position behind the gun, behind his hand, and the muzzle still had not wavered from where it pointed directly between her eyes.

“No,” she answered. “But I can act as if I did, until you prove me right.”

Hawkeye swung the gun down instantly, handing it back to Coulson. Natasha watched it disappear under the jacket, tucked back against the small of his back.

“Welcome aboard, Black Widow,” Hawkeye said, holding out his hand. “I’m Clint Barton.”


	2. Becoming an Agent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha learns her first lessons about loyalty

Natasha keyed a code into the lock and slipped through the door, barely opening it a crack. Barton was curled into a surprisingly compact ball on the loveseat where he usually slept, leaving his bed neatly made. For once, it was not covered by a heap of archery equipment, and she sank on top of the blanket, and tucked her body into its own defensive position. A slight change of breathing told her that Barton knew she was there, so she toed off her boots and tucked herself closer to the wall, waiting. A few minutes later, the front of the mattress dipped as he stretched out on his side in front of her, his blocky shoulders creating their own wall between her and the world. She reached out tentatively and found the skin of his shirtless back, and she let her legs uncoil so she could press herself against him.

“Bad night?” he asked, reaching back to run his fingers down the length of her thigh. She hissed and reached around to dig her nails into his abs, and he rolled and covered her mouth with his own. She returned the kiss, hungry, angry, violent, and he sat up just long enough to strip the oversized t-shirt off of her before wrapping her in his arms and rutting against her thigh.

It was not the first time she had sought his bed to burn off the nervous tension that was building from her seven month long incarceration in SHIELD headquarters. It would not be the last. As always, she slipped out of the room before the first gleam of light showed in the sky, wandering through the seemingly endless of maze of the building until she found a hidden corner to curl up in and catch a quick nap before the daytime staff arrived and the building lights brightened. 

She was unsurprised when Coulson found her in the back of the nearly forgotten closet.

“Good morning, Agent Romanov,” he said blandly, kicking a plastic bucket over and sitting on the upturned bottom. He held out one of the two mugs of coffee he was holding and waited for her to take a sip before speaking again. Exactly the right strength, with the perfect amount of milk and the tiniest hint of sugar. Still steaming hot. He had poured it in his office and traversed the entire building in moments to bring it to her. She wondered if she would ever find a hiding place good enough to slow him down.

“Today is going to be an exciting day for us,” he told her. He took a swallow of coffee, calm, all the time in the world. “In about an hour, you, Agent Barton, and myself will be jetting off to parts unknown - well, unknown to you - for a quick and easy mission. We will likely be gone for several days, but you will need to pack light. Expect quite a bit of down-time. Bring your own entertainment. My office in forty minutes for a briefing.”

And then he rose and sauntered out of the closet, closing the door behind himself.

Natasha ran her fingers through her thick red hair and took another drink of coffee. Well, a mission at last. Better than rotting around here for another minute, surely. She slipped her feet back into her boots and went to her quarters to shower and pack a bag.

 

The third day that Barton went out of their cramped hotel room, leaving a very bored Natasha with an excessively calm Coulson, she decided to try amusing herself. 

“What is your given name?” she asked, flopping onto the bed where Coulson sat, television remote in his lap, idly watching a Spanish soap opera. She made certain to drape her limbs in the most appealing pose possible, letting her back arch just enough to accentuate the curve of her breasts. She propped her chin on her hand and watched him with catlike eyes.

“Agent Coulson,” he replied, his glance darting down her body and away with no change of expression, neither interest nor revulsion showing. 

“What were you called before you became Agent Coulson?” she asked, folding her hands behind her head and rolling to her back, tipping her chin up to study his face upside down.

“Your clearance level isn’t that high,” he replied, lifting the remote and changing channels as a commercial came on.

“What is my clearance level?” she tried again.

“Three,” he replied, finding an infomercial. He watched for a second then thumbed the power button and dropped the remote. 

He was sitting there on the bed, fully suited, tie knotted, jacket on his shoulders - even wearing his perfectly shined shoes, for God’s sake! - completely indifferent to sharing the space with a woman who was doing everything but screaming “Fuck me!” while ripping off her own clothing. Natasha’s eyes narrowed, and she rolled over, letting her hip bump into and then rest against his leg. 

“Are you gay?” she asked bluntly.

“Agent Romanov,” Coulson began, “are you trying to start a conversation or are you just trying my patience?”

“I am tired of waiting,” she said. “And are you? You didn’t actually answer.”

“Oh, no,” Coulson answered. “I can wait much longer than this.”

Natasha gave up in disgust and stomped off to the bathroom for another shower. As the door swung shut behind her, she heard the television click back on.

It took two more days for Barton to find where the intel was located and brief Natasha to infiltrate the office. She slipped into the bathroom to dress in a sleek tac suit while Barton and Coulson finalized their plans. She left the door cracked open so she could eavesdrop. 

“Don’t worry, boss,” Barton said. “This mission is a cakewalk. She could do this in her sleep.”

“It’s not her capabilities that worry me as much as her loyalties,” Coulson replied. “Watch your back.”

“Her loyalties are fine,” Barton answered. “They’re almost as strong as mine were in my first year with you.”

“That is not comforting,” Coulson replied mildly. “Sleeping with you is not the same as trust.”

There was a long, pregnant pause.

“How did you know about that, sir?” Barton asked, his voice more curious than anything.

There was a soft, bored sigh. “It’s my job to know, Specialist.”

Natasha laced up her boots and slipped back into the main room. 

“Ready to go?” Barton asked, grinning with the adrenaline spike that preceded every mission for assassins and spooks the world over. 

Natasha’s answering smile was positively wolfish.

 

The mission went off without a hitch, as did the next, and the one after that. Natasha found her clearance level raised, and she gained the freedom to leave headquarters. Barton kept most of the rest of SHIELD at bay, and Coulson was simply too Coulson to be wildly popular, but they slowly introduced Natasha to some of the people around them that they trusted, inviting certain co-workers one or a few at a time to join them for lunch at the greasy spoon down the road that Barton was certain was a SHIELD cover business. Coulson would neither confirm nor deny his suspicions. 

There was something in each of these agents that appealed to her. Ralph and his team from R&D, who liked to get to know how everyone fought to make the perfect tool for every situation began showing up at the range or in the gym, watching Natasha practice. Ruth from accounting, who Barton told Natasha was the person to suck up to in order to get her reimbursement forms approved quickly. The next handler they met and were later assigned to for their fifth mission was Jasper Sitwell with his laughing eyes and easy smile that turned into a near-Coulson-like focus in the field. He had nothing but praise for the duo when they returned after rescuing a politician’s child who had been kidnapped by a drug lord with a grudge. Natasha was impressed with his gentleness with the child; Barton was impressed by his unsuspected ability to kick ass when things got a bit tight. Coulson just smiled his mild smile when they told him about it; he had known Sitwell for many years.

Agent Halliwell with her beautiful dark skin, her full lips, and her deadpanned one-liners was the next to fit into their team. Coulson was busy with a World Security Council meeting where he was posing as Fury’s personal assistant, when an emergency mission came up that would need someone who could get close and a sniper. Halliwell did not even ask, just let herself into Barton’s quarters and told them to get up, put on clothing and board the jet. It was a mark of her quiet competence and air of authority that the two simply untangled themselves from the bed and dressed while she waited. 

 

Natasha slipped through the halls of the dimly-lit office building, barely more than a shadow herself. She plugged a tiny, wrist-mounted computer into the override of the electronic lock of an office, picked the physical lock, and slid through the door. Still no sounds of alarm in the building. A glance out the window showed the tiniest, briefest flash of light that was the signal that Barton was in position, had her covered, and some of the tension drained out of her shoulders. It was unexpectedly nice, having a partner, knowing someone had her back. She still did not entirely trust him, but she was honest enough to admit that was partially due to her inability to trust herself to have his. She shook off the thought and turned back to the computer. With her compact computer plugged in, she would have the information in a heartbeat and be back out the door and heading to the rendezvous point.

She had just finished linking the tech when she was interrupted by a voice from the darkened end of the room.

“And you must be the infamous Black Widow,” it said. “I heard you had abandoned your loyalties and joined forces with Fury. I would never have believed you would have stooped so low.”

Before she could shake off the shock, she was hit by what felt like a bolt of lightning, fire coursing through her veins, locking her muscles. In the last moment before she lost consciousness, Natasha managed to think, “But I really don’t want to die now.” And then she was gone in a haze of pain and darkness; the pain faded slowly and all that was left was darkness.

The first thing she rediscovered was pain. Every nerve in her body was raw and aching, with a stretch in her shoulders that did not feel normal. Natasha blinked her eyes open slowly and discovered that the fire in her shoulders and arms came from hanging by her hands, wrists held tight in sharp, metal handcuffs. She tried to lock her legs, take some pressure from her abused arms, but she found that her toes barely scraped the ground. She fought the bile rising in her throat and stretched further, managing to take some of her weight on the tips of her toes. The wave of burning ice that ran down her arms as the numbness faded made her vision hazy, but Natasha had survived worse. She took a deep breath to steady herself and took stock of her situation.

Her boots were gone, as were the guns she had strapped to her thighs that morning before leaving HQ. Her clothing felt to be intact everywhere else, a fact for which she was profoundly grateful. She was becoming used to feeling as if her body really were her own, and she was afraid of how it could break her to have that taken away again. Half of her face hurt, and she wondered briefly if she had been struck, or if she had simply slammed into the desk as she had fallen upon being tasered. She needed to talk to Barton’s friend, Charlie, in R&D and see if they could figure out a way to insulate her tac-suit better. Before she finished her personal inventory, a groan to her left captured her full attention.

“Barton?” She tried to call out, but her throat was dry, raw, and what came out was barely a whisper.

“Hey, Romanov,” his voice, also weak, but still full of good humor answered. “Come here often?”

She braced her toes and twisted her body towards the sound of his voice. She could only hold the position a moment before the twist in the chain of the handcuffs swung her back, but that second was enough. Barton was bleeding from... everywhere. His scalp, his face, his bare chest, a gash in his leg, both wrists...

Natasha saw red.

Ignoring the pain that shot through her wrists, she swung to gain momentum and flung herself up, catching the bar over which the cuffs were looped with her ankles. She locked her feet together over the top to hold herself steady and then bit her lip, locked her hands and pulled. There were two sharp pops as both thumbs dislocated, but her hands slid free, lubricated by blood and anger. She flipped her body, dropping to the ground to land unsteadily on her feet, then linked her hands together to reseat the joints with a sharp movement of her shoulders. She unzipped the front of her suit to find the small metal tool hidden in the seam of the zipper, especially glad she hadn’t been stripped.

“I’m sorry, Barton,” Natasha said, walking to him and touching her fingers gently to his cheek. “Try to take as much weight on your legs as you can.”

He grunted at her, and she jumped, catching her hands around his arms and shimmying up him as if he were a tree. He sucked in a breath, the barest hint of a whine ripping out of his throat, and she managed to grab the bar above his head and swing her legs up before it could turn into a scream. She probed into the lock on his cuffs.

“Just one second, Barton,” she said softly to him. “I’ll have you out of there in just one second.”

The tumblers in the lock clicked, and Barton dropped like a rock as soon as his hands were free.

“Come on, Barton,” Natasha whispered, landing beside him, silent on her bare feet. “We have to get out of here. They can’t have you. You’re mine.”

“Mean that?” Barton asked with a crooked grin.

“Just... let’s just go,” she said, looping his arm over her shoulders as she pulled him to his feet.

Three hallways and two brief skirmishes later, and Natasha was once again armed, but Barton was beginning to fade as they ducked out a back door into a darkened alley. She knew she would never be able to drag his bulk up one of the fire escapes that lined the walls around them, so she carefully stuffed Barton behind a dumpster and flitted up a rusty ladder by herself. She found an unlocked window and crept into the apartment beyond, searching for a phone. It was almost a magical change for her when she found no one home and the phone hanging on the wall in the kitchen. She pressed in a number and waited for an answer.

“Madison Street Cleaners,” a bored-sounding woman said. 

“This is Natalie Rushman.” Natasha tried to keep her voice level. “I need to know when those two things that were left can be picked up. I think there were bloodstains on the shirt with feathers.”

“Oh thank... I mean, we can have them ready in about thirty minutes,” the woman answered. “Do you have the correct address?”

“I don’t... I’m not...”

“Thirty minutes,” the woman said firmly, and the line went dead.

 

Later, on the jet that would fly them back to HQ, Natasha rested her cheek against a limp Barton’s thigh and thought how nice it was to have an organization that actually backed their agents, that knew when they were missing, that sent out a rescue team. Maybe she should consider giving loyalty a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter half-unbetaed owing to different time zones and my impatience. If you catch a huge error, please drop me a comment to let me know so I can fix it.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Best Left Unsaid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were some things Natasha just did not say.

Natasha found herself confiding in Barton during the week he was confined to medical. She justified her openness to herself by reasoning that, with the pain medication he was on, he was unlikely to remember even half of what she said. She stuttered through her training, waxed nostalgic over her early successes and the trail of bodies, began to tell him about some of the darker moments but ended up just sitting on the foot of his bed, hand wrapped around his ankle and not saying a word, and then she told him about those glorious, flying months when she thought she had found a way to leave that world. Barton just sat there listening, sometimes his eyes were open, other times they were closed, but she liked the thought of him hearing the words, learning her, even if he never really registered a single word.

Agent Coulson was often in the room with them, and she was careful to try to edit the stories she told when he was around. But sometimes, because he was so quiet, just a shadow in the corner, she forgot herself. She worried that Coulson might be learning her too well, finding weaknesses to exploit, to force her into the missions he had promised her she would not have to take. She batted around that fear for a few days, until she woke up in the middle of the night and found herself curled, completely including her shoes, on the deep sofa in Coulson’s office with a thick blanket tucked around her shoulders and a mug that smelled of infinitely dark chocolate and heaven sitting on the mug-warmer on Coulson’s desk. A note in a relaxed, flowing scrawl that never appeared on reports read, “You passed out from exhaustion and about hit the floor. Door’s on lockdown. Try Barton’s exit when you’re ready to go. PC”

She sipped the rich chocolate, savoring every drop and wondering where Coulson had found such a thing, and then she pulled the blanket snugly around her body, knowing this office was one of the most secure places in the world. She kicked off her boots, grateful for the understanding of her boundaries implied by having left them on, and snuggled down to sleep a bit more before slipping out through the vent. She ended up spending the night there.

 

The next night, curled into Natasha’s lap on the loveseat in his quarters, Barton told her he loved her. She froze for one long moment, considered slithering away and running out the door, then simply sighed and ran her fingers through his hair, nails scraping hard on his scalp.

“I’m sure you do, Clint,” she said, smiling down at his dreamy-drugged face. “But don’t get too caught up in that, okay?”

“‘M not,” he answered, hovering on the edge of sleep. “Just thought you should know.”

Later, after manhandling him onto his actual bed and tucking blankets securely around his limp body, Natasha slipped out the door and picked her way to the helipad on the roof. She needed the night and the open and the world below her feet, needed to turn off her thoughts and to find some quiet and calm.

“Agent Romanov,” a voice rang out of the silence behind her as she stood at the edge of the building, staring across the lights of the city.

She gasped, spinning, aware of the drop near at hand, immediately determining the best way to flip an attacker over the side while remaining solidly on the roof. A firm hand caught her arm, guiding her gently away from the edge. 

“Not thinking of trying to fly without wings, are you, Agent?” One sharp eye watched her, reflecting the moon.

“No, Director Fury,” she answered. “I just... I was just trying to find room to think. Uh, sir.”

“Good,” he replied with a lift to his chin that might have been a nod. He released her and stepped back, shifted his shoulders uncomfortably, then stilled, resting one hand on the butt of the gun at his hip, which seemed to be his idea of relaxed. “I have lined up some training for you. You will report to Coulson in the morning, 0800 hours, for a briefing. Be packed beforehand. You’ll be gone several months. Wheels up at 0900. You’re doing well, Agent.”

He gave her another brief nod before strolling across the roof, and Natasha watched him, half-holding her breath until he was gone. She shook her head sharply and walked slowly back to the vent she had used to climb up. 

Natasha’s hands were still shaking when she let herself into her own, mostly-unused quarters a few minutes later. What further training could she possibly require? And why had Director Fury himself come hunting for her to deliver that message? He had flunkies for such things. And praise from the only man she knew who was colder than herself? That made her uncomfortable. She eased into the soft black pants and tank that were her preferred sleep clothes as she pondered. After brushing her teeth in the tiny bathroom, she prepared to head out to find a hidden corner to sleep in and stopped. She looked at the door, then at the bed. After a long pause, she shrugged and crawled onto the bed, burrowing under the blanket. Might as well try it out before she had to leave it. The mattress was better than the one in Clint’s quarters, and she was asleep in moments.

 

The training she was sent to consisted of a crash course in college: accounting and business, international law, humanities, art, political science. Two degrees worth of work in a year. She was not surprised that Clint called her every few days. She was only slightly surprised when Coulson made a point of calling her every Sunday evening at 1800 hours sharp. He said it was for status updates on her education, but mostly he seemed to want to know how Natasha the person was doing, rather than Natasha the asset. She was downright stunned when she got weekend phone calls, very regularly, from the rest of the agents and support staff that she had met through Clint and Coulson. Her email was full of office gossip from the other agents she was training with, although it was all addressed to her undercover identity, Natalie Rushman. 

She liked being Natalie, who seemed like the kind of person who would have lots of friends, who would be popular and fun, confident, and more than simply effective. It was a strange feeling, almost like being normal. Unsettling, but not entirely unwelcome. After the first two months, she started answering the emails in her inbox, using the persona she was building. She occasionally sent emails to friends at headquarters, and, if those also smacked of Natalie, well, none of them knew her well enough to call her out on it.

Clint and Coulson, however, never got Natalie messages or any other kind of email from her. Nothing important that she wanted to say to them could be written, and none of it could be trusted to SHIELD’s always-spied-on phone lines. So she saved it up, knowing there would be time to tell them both later. If ever. There were some things Natasha just did not say.

And then came Hong Kong. 

Seven months into the training course, Natasha was scribbling down notes on international treaty law when Coulson walked into the lecture hall, all composure and expensive tailoring. He stopped at the end of the row of seats where she sat, nodded briskly to the instructor, and then at her. She clicked her laptop shut and slid it carefully into its bag before ghosting past the other students in the row and following Coulson back up the steps and out into the hallway. 

“Natasha,” he said, one corner of his lips curling up slightly. She recognized it for the grin it was. “You’re looking well.”

She glanced down at the jeans and soft t-shirt she had picked that morning, so completely different from any clothing she had ever chosen before. She had felt that playing the part of a normal college student (in a room full of spies, granted) deserved a proper costume. 

“You’re looking you’re usual sharp self, sir,” she answered. “That suit is flattering.”

“I bet you say that to all the agents,” Coulson replied.

“You should smile when someone gives you a compliment, Coulson,” she told him solemnly, "if you aren't even going to say thank you."

"Thank you." He looked down at her, equally solemn. “I am smiling.”

Natasha let a twinkle show in her eyes, and Coulson hummed softly in his throat. She had heard him make that sound at Clint, and she suddenly understood that it was a laugh, or at least a small sign of amusement.

“You’re going to have to skip out of here for a few weeks,” he said, gesturing with his head for her to follow him and continuing up the hall. “And you’re going to have to put your studies to use. I need an assistant for a meeting in Hong Kong, strictly aboveboard this time. Well, mostly aboveboard. At least fifty percent. We should get through it with a minimum of explosions and gunfights, anyway.”

“Sounds interesting, sir,” she answered, brushing her shoulder against his arm as they walked. There was a slight softening to the stern lines around his eyes, and he shifted microscopically until his sleeve could brush gently against hers. A few minutes later, she considered that exchange of shoulder bumps and found herself almost smiling as she packed an overnight case. It was a gesture she and Clint used on missions when speaking was out. Coulson had noticed. He noticed everything.

Except the tripwire connected to a can of gas in the office he was using in Hong Kong.

“‘The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley,’” Coulson quoted dryly. He sat in the corner of the closet-sized room where they woke up, arms around his knees, head leaning back against the wall. They had been in Hong Kong less than twenty-four hours, and they had already been made as SHIELD and taken prisoner by a group that was hoping to destabilize the entire South West Pacific region. He had that pinched look that his eyebrows got whenever he was about to have to fill out the annoying forms.

“What’s that, sir?” Natasha asked.

“Robert Burns,” he said. “Scottish poet.”

“Entertain me,” Natasha said, tucking her feet under her. Being trapped in a skirt was unfortunate, but having broken the heel off of one of the expensive pumps she had been wearing was absolutely untenable. Her near future was going to contain a good sulk if she did not find a way to distract herself.

Coulson quoted the mouse poem to her, and then followed it by teaching her a song called “Is There for Honest Poverty.” She liked the bounce to the tune, even though she could not understand more than a third of the words. They were belting it out when someone banged on the door to their cell.

“It’s time for you songbirds to stop singing,” a voice barked. Coulson ignored the command, and the door slammed open.

Weeks later, Natasha would remember that there had been a moment when everything froze. She knew that frozen second of time would remain forever, tucked into the corner of some other reality. The guard slammed the door open, gun already leveled at Natasha’s head; Coulson did not change expression as he gathered himself to flow off the floor, arms back to lever himself up; Natasha fought to keep from curling into herself, trying to face death with the same impassive face with which she faced life; she felt her green eyes widen in surprise as she found she could not. Clocks stopped and heartbeats faltered, and that moment became fixed, locked in stasis.

Time came back into the room in a rush with the report of the gun. Coulson had somehow gotten himself draped over the guard’s arm, deflecting the bullet from Natasha’s head by the simple expedient of letting it go through his arm as he wrestled the man to the ground. 

“Natasha, help me,” Coulson grunted. She tried to rise, but her legs would not listen. She was aware of kicks and grunts, the crack of a skull being driven against concrete. Her blouse felt wet. And then everything was silent and white.

There was agony in her stomach when sounds and shadows returned to her. There was a sense of movement, vibrations around her, and she could hear a whisper of jet engines. She could also hear voices, quiet, steady, but with a thread of fear running under them. 

“I’m sorry, Barton,” Coulson was repeating. “I am so, so sorry. I tried to keep her safe, but I just...”

“It’s okay, sir,” Clint’s voice was gentle, calm. “I know you did. You always take care of your agents. You have to get that arm looked at, though. You’re bleeding out.”

“Damn my arm,” Coulson snapped. “I’m more...”

“Coulson,” Clint barked, “please. I’m frantic here. I don’t have enough in me to worry about you both right now. Get that arm checked out.”

Natasha turned her head so she could see them, even though she could barely open her eyes. They were standing near each other, near enough to touch, but their hands were carefully kept to themselves in spite of the way they both shifted, leaning toward one another. She was reminded of the tenderness in the way Coulson talked to Barton as he stitched and cleaned the wound in that filthy hovel of a safe house. She tried to recall the words, remembering... almost remembering... something about hope.

She slipped under again.

“Come on, Agent Romanov,” Coulson’s voice, raspy from lack of sleep and too much talking, was the first thing she heard when she finally surfaced again. She blinked her eyes open, flinching at the brilliantly white walls, the blazing light overhead, and the sharp beep of a monitor near her ear. “Clint is like a lost puppy without you. He’s gotten pretty used to having you around, and I’m not sure he’d get used to not having you around now. Neither would I, for that matter.”

“Hullo, sir,” she rasped out in a whisper. 

“Oh thank...” Coulson squeezed her fingers and pressed his forehead against their clasped hands. He instantly stiffened and dropped her hand, standing so quickly that his chair flew over backwards. “I am so sorry, Natasha,” he gasped. “I just...”

Natasha did not have energy try to speak again. She just unsmilingly held her hand up a few inches. Coulson stared at it for a moment before slowly righting the chair. He closed his large hand carefully around her slender fingers and sank back down. She held his gaze for a moment before deliberately closing her eyes to sleep.

There were some things Natasha did not say, but the people who needed to know understood anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is unBetaed at the moment. Sorry it has taken so long to get up. Time and quiet to write something have been hard to come by. Here's hoping the next chapter won't take so long.


	4. Natalie Has Friends Like A Real Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More training, more missions

Natasha returned to the DC training center the following week. It was still painful to walk, but she was used to ignoring physical discomfort when there was a task at hand. In deference to her injury, she was granted private tutors who came to her room, rather than being forced to sit through classes. The bonus side-effect was that she was no longer hindered by the pace of the slowest student in the room; with unhindered access, she began to fly toward the end of the course. And then she was given a new instructor.

Assistant Director Maria Hill was officially the last person Natasha expected to find standing outside the door to her quarters. She had met Hill, of course, had been in briefings where the AD stood around looking intimidating behind Director Fury. Hill had even been lead Agent on one incredibly classified, sensitive, and difficult mission, but, as Coulson had been there as the official handler for Clint and herself, Natasha had not actually exchanged more than five words with the woman. 

“Come in,” Natasha said, opening the door wider and stepping out of the way. She managed to fight off the urge to salute.

“Agent Romanov,” Hill began, standing stiffly in the center of the room, “Director Fury and I have been consulting with Agents Coulson and Barton, as well as listening to recommendations from Agents Halliwell and Sitwell. We have reached a consensus that your talents would be better used for infiltration and information gathering, rather than the... grab and go missions for which we have been using you. As per your employment agreement, I have come to ask if you would find this change in position agreeable.”

Natasha hesitated, trying to figure out a way to say yes that would not sound as eager as she suddenly felt.

“It would, of course, include a promotion, an increase in your security clearance, and a housing allowance, so that you could establish a residence address outside of SHIELD headquarters. A paper trail on Natalie Rushman would need to be established, including the appearance of a social history.”

“I... Of course,” Natasha said. “That would suit... it would be... Yes.”

Hill’s perfect features transformed from cold marble to glowing warmth with her smile. 

“Then welcome to Level Five, Ms. Rushman,” she said, holding out her hand. Natasha took it, surprised at the firmness of the handshake. “You might wish to begin packing immediately. You and I are due on a plane to New York first thing in the morning. Your private tutors will, of course, accompany you to finish this course. And then you’ll be training with me for your future duties.”

“Agent Hill,” Natasha said. She paused, hunting for words. “Would I be allowed to have... guests... in my apartment?”

Hill looked momentarily confused, then her expression cleared.

“Agent Barton could, of course, visit or stay with you as often as you wish,” she said, smiling indulgently. “However, all change of address forms are due within eight hours of a move taking place.”

Natasha understood that Hill, along with everyone else at HQ, thought that she and Clint were together or dating or involved or something. It was not quite so easy to define as that, but, knowing she could keep him at her place from time to time was good enough, and she did not feel the need to correct the AD.

“I’ll let you get packing,” Hill said. She nodded briskly and left the room with her usual controlled, graceful walk.

Coulson looked like the proverbial cat who ate the canary when Natasha trailed Hill off of the transport. He let his eyes twinkle at Hill, and the corner of her mouth lifted slightly in reply. Natasha realized with a flash of understanding that Hill learned that expression from Coulson himself, and it opened up a whole new train of inquiry for her perpetually curious mind. There seemed to be history in that exchange of smiles that were not really smiles. Interesting.

There was not time to pursue that train of thought, however, as Natasha found herself spending fourteen hours a day training for her new role. There were the tutors and increased work on tech and hours spent sparring to keep from losing her old skills as she learned new ones; there were hours sitting with ADHill in conference rooms with files and papers and computers covering the enormous table to learn about the upper reaches of world governments and the ruling classes of criminals in mobs and gangs and paramilitary organization. And then there were hours out and about in the city with Maria (“You must learn to act like you have friends, Natasha, so you can’t call me Assistant Director Hill while we’re getting our nails done”), trying to learn to blend in with normal people, people who did not kill for a living, people who had never used their fingernails to blind an enemy. 

She did find occasional stolen hours to drape herself on the luxury that was the couch in Coulson’s office while she studied. Sometimes, Clint would join her there, both of them busy with their own paperwork, their own tablets while Coulson sat at his desk, filling in forms and saving the world via email. And that was when Natasha began to notice something else. Something very interesting.

“You want him,” she told Clint one day as they sparred. Her thighs were locked around Clint’s neck. He struggled to free himself, and she twisted, getting one arm around his leg and twisting his knee the wrong way to keep him still.

“Who? What? Tasha?” Clint said, going limp in her grip and straining to turn his face toward her. She relaxed - a mistake - and he had broken free and had her pinned to the mat. “Who do I want?”

“I can see it every time you look at him,” she said, levering him off of her and coiling to her feet. “He wants you, too, you know.” 

She easily slid under the butt of his hand as it drove toward her face and slammed her thigh into the side of his knee, dropping backward as he hit the mat to let her elbow dig into his stomach. He whined, the breath knocked out of him, and she let up.

“Seriously, Tash,” he said when he got his breath back. “No idea what you’re talking about. There’s only you.”

“That’s physical release and your sick need to be touched,” she answered coolly. “Don’t pretend. But you want more from him.”

She did not understand this need that most people felt to be close to someone. She knew Clint felt it. Maria was the only person she knew who did not. Well, maybe Coulson. It was sometimes hard to read him. Clint, however, wanted physical to be emotional and emotional to be physical. It worried her, sometimes, when she crawled into his bed on the rough nights, but he kept his declarations of love to moments when he was damaged or high on pain meds from being damaged or just too tired to fake anything, so she tried to put the nagging sense of guilt out of her mind. And she tried to find another bed to crawl into on occasion. 

 

There were more missions after her training. Infiltration, intelligence-gathering, assassinations that needed to happen up close, undetectable. Natasha was most frequently backed by the unerring aim of Hawkeye and the infallible judgement of Agent Coulson, and she found herself looking forward the down time and the flights home with Clint and Phil. Sometimes things went to hell, like that ridiculous four-way shootout in Budapest, or the actual Mexican standoff in Mexico with the two drug cartels where everyone held guns on everyone else for the better part of fourteen hours. Every time, it seemed, Barton or Coulson would do something stupid and heroic and they would all end up drinking too much and laughing hysterically the following weekend on Natasha’s couch or around Coulson’s tv. 

It was during those months of missions with her team that Tasha got used to sleeping in a bed beside a man or between two without removing her clothing. She sometimes would fidget in the too-small bed, crowded by too many limbs, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this person in her mind was her or just some other aspect of her training, her conditioning, showing through.

She sometimes wondered who she would be if she were actually alone.

 

“Agent Romanov,” Hill’s voice was crisp over the phone, “Director Fury would like to speak with you first thing in the morning.”

“Ma’am,” Natasha replied as affirmatively as she could before hanging up the phone. She was still recovering from a bullet that grazed her shoulder, and she was slightly cross from having spent the last two nights alone, since Clint and Phil had finally started to get their mess fixed. The last time Fury had actually spoken to her personally, not counting one chance encounter at one of the multitude of coffee stations around headquarters, she had ended up getting a promotion, so she was not really displeased by this summons, but she did wonder.

 

And that was how she ended up babysitting, or, rather GUARDING Tony Stark. 

Natasha decided to be preemptively displeased by all future summonses from the Director’s office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this has taken so long to update and that this chapter is short and mostly filler. Outlining the rest now and carving out space and time for writing. In order to try to give you all SOMETHING, this is not only unbetaed, it's not very well proof-read by me. If you find a glaring (or subtle) error, PLEASE let me know.
> 
> It now looks as if there will be a total of 8 chapters. I'll try to get back to one a week.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, and even more than usual with something this serious, your comments, thoughts, and feedback are welcome and craved. Thanks for reading.


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